


He's Got a Black Heart

by stylesoftheshire



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Infidelity, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-13
Updated: 2013-02-13
Packaged: 2017-11-29 02:48:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/681854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stylesoftheshire/pseuds/stylesoftheshire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry lies about where he goes and Louis accepts it, but falling asleep alone too many times takes its toll.</p>
            </blockquote>





	He's Got a Black Heart

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from song of the same name by StooShe

Harry told lies and Louis had smiled through each one. He had learnt to live with the façade because he couldn’t survive without it. To confront Harry about where he was really going would be accepting that their relationship wasn’t perfect and that was something Louis wasn’t sure he could do.

Harry would kiss him on the cheek and tell him he was going to Niall’s and Louis would hug him a little tighter and tell him not to stay too late. He’d overcome the urge to ring Niall by burying his phone beneath the sofa cushions. Then he’d leave the room entirely and crawl into the bed that seemed far too big to sleep in. He lay as close to the wall as possible to avoid the side where Harry was supposed to be. It hurt too much to be reminded that he wasn’t there.

He’d wake up in the morning to Harry’s sleeping face and for a minute he would let himself believe that he had been there all along. He would pretend that he had fallen asleep in Harry’s arms after leaving that red mark he could see on his neck. If he could let himself stay in that dream for any longer then it would be too cruel when Harry rolled over, wafting the scent of a stranger over Louis and stabbing him in the chest. His fingertips would stroke down Harry’s cheek and over his parted lips, asking the same question of why his weren’t the last ones to kiss them.

Those were the mornings he’d slip out of bed and dig for his phone again, his heart sinking every time when he’d see the text Harry had sent saying not to wait up for him, that the game was going on longer than he thought and not to be worried. Then he’d hear the shower turning on and he’d wait for Harry to emerge before swallowing down his pride and throwing himself at him, asking how his night went. Harry would beam at him, gather him in his arms and rattle off a story that Louis wasn’t really paying attention to. Instead, he would distract himself with the way he spoke, the way he shook his hair and how he expressed himself with his hands, anything so he could keep smiling as the lies poured from Harry’s sinful lips.

Then Harry would kiss him and love him the whole day, maybe even through the night, holding him in bed either tenderly or passionately and Louis would hope against hope that it would stay this way. He didn’t think it possible for Harry to treat him like his everything one day only to escape him for another body the next. He was wrong. Every time. 

One perfect day would be followed by a perfect hell of lying alone in bed, staring at the ceiling and wondering why this was happening to them. He would curl up into a ball and hold himself together, trying to keep back the tears for as long as possible, because to cry was to give in. They always came, though. Some nights they fell silent and steady and he wouldn’t bother to wipe them away because they began to feel like a part of him. 

Then there were the other nights, the ones that would come after three days of pure bliss only for Harry to skip out the door with a false truth and leave him alone and lonely. Those were the nights when he had to dig his nails into his skin to keep the tears at bay, but he couldn’t stop them. He’d sob brokenly and raggedly, his head throbbing and his throat sore from screaming questions that he couldn’t keep inside. He’d wake up with his eyes sore and puffy, and Harry lying perfectly beside him, a hand on his waist like he wasn’t singlehandedly destroying him.

Harry always asked why his eyes were swollen and then he would laugh when he’d tell him he had watched The Notebook the night before. It would end at that, with a smile that broke Louis’ heart and fixed it again, and the cycle would restart. 

Today was different though. 

Today Louis woke up to the same sight he fell asleep to – an empty bed. 

There was a finality to it that Louis had seen coming months ago, but was too scared to admit. 

He reached out with a shaking hand to touch the pillow that was still smooth from having not been slept on. The sheets were cold where Harry’s skin was meant to warm them and they felt even colder when he heard the front door open and close quietly. 

This was it.

It couldn’t go on any longer because, no matter how much pain Harry put him through, it was still their bed he fell asleep in afterwards. 

But not anymore.

Louis pulled himself upright, wrapping himself tightly in the duvet for some comfort as he listened to Harry tiptoeing toward their room. He was terrified. He was about to lose everything that had been slipping away for so long. 

By the time the door started to open slowly, Louis’ heart was thudding icily against his ribs and constricting his throat to the point where he wasn’t sure he could breathe enough to do this. As soon as Harry’s face appeared around the door, he almost forgot what he was about to do.

He looked devastatingly beautiful, just like always. He was biting his lip like he was concentrating, but as soon as he saw Louis sitting up in bed his mouth fell open. Louis could already feel the tears as Harry rearranged his face into something less guilty.

‘Why are you awake?’ Harry asked innocently.

Louis had to swallow three times before the lump in his throat disappeared.

‘It’s 9 o’clock,’ he replied quietly, watching as Harry’s eyes dropped to the carpet. ‘Where were you?’

‘I… I stayed at Liam’s. I was helping him put up some cupboards and it —‘

‘Just stop.’

Louis didn’t think he could handle another bullshit story. There were so many questions he could ask right now, but there was one that he always came back to, the one he’d ask himself in nearly all the mornings leading up to this one.

‘Why haven’t you left me yet?’ he asked sadly.

Harry’s face crumpled but Louis couldn’t imagine why.

‘Because I love you,’ Harry said simply, moving closer to the bed but stopping when Louis flinched.

‘No, you don’t,’ Louis mumbled, shaking his head. ‘I love you, but you don’t love me.’

‘How can you say that? You know that you mean the world to me.’

‘When are you going to stop lying to me, Harry? Am I not worth anything to you at all?’

Harry sat down gingerly at the edge of the bed, his eyes following Louis as he scooted closer to the wall and away from him.

‘Louis, I can explain. I just —‘

‘You can explain?’ Louis asked incredulously. He let the duvet fall from around his shoulders, welcoming the anger that was beginning to edge its way in because it was easier to cope with than the heartbreak. ‘You can explain why you’ve been running off and fucking other people while I lie in bed crying myself to sleep because I’m too in love to leave you?’

Harry faltered, his eyes panicky and his lower lip trembling like he was the one about to burst into tears. It was almost as though he thought he had been getting away with it.

‘I knew you wouldn’t leave me,’ he muttered and it was the worst thing he could have chosen to say.

Suddenly, anger was all Louis knew and he lashed out, slapping Harry hard across the face. He didn’t even care how much he hurt him because it was nothing compared to everything he had put him through. He leapt out of bed so he was standing over him, so he could feel like he was the one in control.

‘You’re saying you’ve been cheating on me because you thought I’d put up with anything for you? You think you’re that fucking great that I’m going to make do with whatever shitty relationship I can get? That’s the reason?’

Harry stared up at him, holding his stinging cheek, looking a little shocked, and crying like he knew he was scum.

‘That’s not why,’ he said shakily. ‘I love you so much and it kills me that I can’t tell the world.’

‘So you decided to make it so there’s nothing to tell?’

Harry shook his head, ducking it down so his hair hid his face.

‘No, I was trying to protect us.’

Louis could have laughed.

‘Don’t give me that crap. It’s one thing to be seen in public with a girl to get the media off of our backs, Harry. But this—‘ he gestured around them, trying to encompass all of what they had become in one sweep of his arms. ‘—this is something else. You let it become real.’

‘Louis, you have to understand that —‘

‘Understand?’ Louis exclaimed, nearly screeching. ‘What is there for me to understand, Harry? I wake up most mornings knowing that I fell asleep alone while you were fucking a stranger. Then you come home and act like you love me, you hold me, you kiss me, you fuck me in the very bed where you abandon me. I don’t know how long you expected to be able to treat me like shit, but I’m so fucking sick of it. I am sick and I am tired of being treated like I’m nothing by the one person who used to make me feel on top of the world. You used to do everything right and now I barely recognise you.’

He could feel the hot tears on his cheeks, but it felt too good to get the words out in the open for him to care. It felt too good to watch Harry slump over with his head in his hands and know that he was crying too. It felt too good to hurt the person he loved and it was twisted, but it was Harry who made that possible.

‘I think it’s time you finally left, Harry.’

Harry’s head shot up and he looked frightened.

‘I-I can’t leave you!’ he said almost frantically. ‘I can’t live without you.’

Louis always thought it would be him saying those words when this time came, and hearing them from Harry’s lips just sounded like a joke.

‘I don’t understand you anymore,’ he said. 

‘There’s nothing to understand!’ Harry insisted like he was grasping at straws. ‘I made a mistake and I didn’t even enjoy it, I j—‘

‘What do you mean you didn’t enjoy it? Why the fuck would you be sleeping around if you didn’t enjoy it?’

Harry squeezed his eyes shut and drew his feet up onto the bed, hugging his knees to his chest. He looked defeated and pathetic and sad, and Louis wanted him to stop it because he looked like how he felt nearly every night.

‘I’m not happy, Lou,’ he whispered and Louis suddenly felt unsure on his feet.

If there were words he never wanted to hear Harry say, it was those. Despite all the hurt and the rage, Louis took the smallest bit of solace in that what Harry was doing still made him smile. It was what let Louis sleep at night, even if what hurt the most was to know that someone else was dimpling Harry’s cheeks.

‘I’m not satisfied with anything in my life,’ Harry continued. ‘I love you so much, Lou, but even that is something for behind closed doors.’

Louis shook his head to attempt to clear his thoughts, trying not to let the wretched boy in front of him turn this whole thing around so he was the victim instead.

‘But why does that mean you have to hurt me?’ 

Harry shrugged his shoulders and Louis saw the weight of the world resting on them.

‘You’re the most precious thing in my life and I can’t tell the world. I have an itch that I can’t scratch. There’s pressure from everywhere and I can’t get rid of it. All I can do is lose myself in a life that isn’t mine if only for a few hours. There aren’t enough excuses and no valid reasons because sometimes even I don’t understand. It’s still you I want to fall asleep next to though.’

‘Not last night,’ Louis said bitterly.

A tear dripped off of the end of Harry’s nose and Louis watched with a grim mixture of satisfaction and longing.

‘Whenever I come home after being with someone else, all I want to do is throw myself off of the tallest building I can find,’ he said bluntly and Louis gasped because for all the lives in this world, Harry should not want to be taking his own. ‘I hate myself but I can’t stop myself. The only thing that keeps me from falling is knowing that you’re here, in our bed, sleeping soundly. 

‘Every time I slip under the covers, your body turns toward me like you were waiting for me the whole time and I know I don’t deserve you, but I’m too selfish to let you go. You look so perfect and I want to hold you right there forever, but then I remember that I have no choice because I can’t hold you where others can see anyway. 

‘I knew that there was no way you didn’t know but I lied anyway, because maybe if we had put up with the charade for a little longer I really would have gone over to Liam’s instead of to a bar. If I pretended for one more day, then maybe the next time I said I’d be home before midnight I actually would and I’d be able to watch you fall asleep. Last night, I couldn’t bear to know I had missed it again, that I had let you fall asleep without me to hold you through it. I felt so guilty. I’m abusing you because sometimes it hurts to be alive and you’re the one thing keeping me here.’

Louis sunk to his knees in front of him. He might have been tired before, but he was exhausted now. He was confused and still hurting, but only one thing still stood clear and that was that he was glad Harry didn’t leave when he told him to. The anger had ebbed away and left behind the need to fix someone who he didn’t even know was broken when he should have been the first to know.

‘I can’t forgive you and I don’t trust you anymore,’ he stated and Harry nodded his head regretfully like he understood.

‘I’m so sorry, Lou.’

‘Harry, you can’t say sorry enough times to make up for what you’ve done so don’t start apologising because you won’t be able to finish.

Harry looked up at him fearfully and Louis had to stop for a few seconds because he could see the tears clinging to the lashes that framed the most beautiful eyes he knew he would ever see. It wasn’t right when they weren’t smiling. 

‘All I want is for you to stop lying. I want you to treat our relationship as a relationship and cut the shit so I can start to trust you again. I want you to say that it’ll only ever be me for the rest of our lives and for you to mean it, because I have meant it every day since I met you. Even if I could kick you out it would still hold true.’

Harry was staring at him like he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing and it made Louis question whether he should be saying these things or not. He had his pride and he had months worth of betrayal built up, but he was starting to think that having a backbone isn’t about walking away. It made him feel weak to accept Harry back into his life before he had even let him go properly, but he would be weaker without him. 

‘It’ll take time, Harry, but I love you so much that I stayed and all I really want is for you to stay as well,’ he sighed, reaching forward to hold onto the hands that gripped back at him like he was a lifeline. ‘And I mean really stay. I want to be the only one again.’

‘You always were, Lou.’

Louis let himself smile, but he shook his head.

‘No, I wasn’t. You needed others to make yourself feel whole. It never used to be like that.’

‘Everything just got too much,’ Harry whispered and he squeezed Louis’ hands until it hurt. ‘But I love you.’

‘Will you stay, Harry? Like, really stay? Will you fall asleep next to me every night and stay there until morning?’

Harry bowed his head uncertainly and pressed a shy kiss to their joined hands before looking up as though he was seeking permission for the affection. 

‘Only if you’ll pull me back from the edge.’

Louis took a deep breath and kissed the same spot between their hands, sealing his fate as being tied to Harry’s no matter what it meant he had to go through.

‘Even if I don’t, you know I’ll be waiting at the bottom.’


End file.
